Background
Winand Michael Wigger was born on December 9, 1841 in New York City, the son of John Joseph and Elizabeth (Strucke) Wigger, successful immigrants from Westphalia.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Michael Winand Wigger
Edit ProfileEducation
He was educated in the parochial school of St. Francis of Assisi, at the College of St. Francis Xavier, and at St. John's College, Fordham. Refused admission to the diocesan seminary of New York by Vicar General William Starrs on the score of poor health, Wigger appealed to Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley of Newark, who enrolled him in the Seton Hall Seminary at South Orange and later in the Lazarist's Collegio Brignole-Sale in Genoa. In addition to theological lore, he acquired a fluent knowledge of French and Italian, studied music, and gained considerable physical vigor. After a brief term in the University of the Sapienza, Rome, from which he later received a doctorate in divinity (1869), he returned to America (1866).
Career
He was ordained a priest (June 10, 1865) in the Lazarist's Collegio Brignole-Sale. A curate at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Newark, he profited under the guidance of the learned Msgr. George Doane, and displayed a courageous, straightforward character, a loving interest in the poor, and considerable tact. In 1869 he was appointed to the pastorate of St. Vincent's Church in Madison, N. J. ; he later reorganized the finances of St. John's Church in Orange, which struggled with a heavy indebtedness, and then was assigned an easy parish in healthful Summit (1874 - 76), after which he returned to Madison. In 1880, when Bishop Michael Corrigan was translated to New York, he was named bishop of Newark, though as a German without political finesse his selection had seemed doubtful. Consecrated by Corrigan (October 18, 1881), he soon convinced some of the Irish priests and laity, who resented a German ordinary, that he was honest, affable, and judicious. For the sake of his health, he resided with the faculty of Seton Hall College. A leader in the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (1884), he took a decided stand in support of Christian education, parochial schools, and the relief of Catholic immigrants, especially Germans and Italians for whom little had been done. As president of the New York branch of Peter Paul Cahensly's St. Raphael's Society, he established St. Leo's House at the Battery for the care of German arrivals (1889). A participant from 1885 in the annual conventions of the Priester-Verein, he was a friend of Fathers George Bornemann, H. Mehlsiepen, vicar-general of St. Louis, and P. J. Shroeder of the Catholic University in Washington, an intimate friend of Cahensly. Like many other German leaders, these men were vitally interested in national bishops, racial parishes, parochial schools which would preserve both faith and mother tongue, and greater recognition of German numbers and leadership in appointments to positions of consequence in the Church. While Wigger was sympathetic, he did not go the whole distance. Yet he refused to cast aside his German friends when they were misrepresented and attacked by some of the Catholic journals, and when he drew his share of fire his critics learned that the full-bearded German lacked neither courage nor moral stamina. Attached to his diocese, Wigger refused an appointment to the archepiscopal see of Milwaukee (1890), but building churches, organizing parishes, erecting schools, constructing a cathedral, and ministering to the lax Italian immigrants kept him on edge, despite pleasant journeys to the Holy Land and Europe. Subject to pulmonary diseases, he died of a third attack of pneumonia.
Achievements
Connections
-
Born
-
Died
January 5, 1901 (aged 59) -
Resting place
Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, East Orange, New Jersey, United States -
Nationality
American -
Religion
Catholic